Haiti’s injured earthquake victims have suffered a potentially deadly setback after the US military said it had suspended evacuation flights because of a dispute over medical care costs.
Flights that have carried more than 500 people with spinal injuries, burns and other wounds ended after the governor of Florida asked the government to share the financial burden on his state’s hospitals.
“Apparently, some states were unwilling to accept the entry of Haitian patients for follow-on critical care,” US Transportation Command spokesman Captain Kevin Aandahl said. “Without a destination to fly to, we can’t move anybody.”
Aid groups warned the row over money could cost lives.
“People are dying in Haiti because they can’t get out,” Barth Green of Project Medishare for Haiti, a nonprofit group which has been evacuating about two dozen patients a day, told the New York Times.
The US State and Defense Departments were working with Florida governor Charlie Crist and state authorities to try to fix the problem, US Ambassador to Haiti Kenneth Merten said.
The US has spearheaded relief efforts since the 7.0 magnitude quake on Jan. 12, which killed about 170,000 people, injured around 200,000 and left more than 1 million homeless.
The aid effort as a whole has, however, drawn criticism for a lack of coordination. Several leftist Latin American nations have accused US forces of occupying Haiti militarily instead of focusing on aid needs.
Quake-hit Haitians, many of whom are living in squalid makeshift tent camps, have also complained that the huge influx of relief has been slow to reach them on the ground.
Health Minister Alex Larsen said the government was “moving as fast as possible” to shelter quake victims ahead of heavy rains due as soon as next month that could trigger a public health disaster.
“There’s discussion going on right now on how to deal with this issue quick enough,” Larsen said.
The UN has warned that if heavy rains arrive — perhaps as early as the middle of this month — it could provoke a public health catastrophe, spreading disease through dense, insanitary makeshift encampments.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS